Wake Up Little Susie

Fourteen

I’ve found that the true gourmet chef learns to mix and blend prime ingredients in new and interesting ways. All you need is a hot plate.

Take Dinty Moore Beef Stew and a small can of creamed corn: a rare delight.

Or a can of Campbell’s Mushroom Soup and a can of Foster’s Small Potatoes: exquisite. Or a can of tuna fish and a can of tomatoes: Voil@a! Two more rules: always serve everything with potato chips, and, if the main dish leaves something to be desired, douse liberally with ketchup. If ketchup can’t kill an offending taste, then you’ve created a gourmet meal that God did not intend to be created.

Such are the ways of bachelorhood.

I was eating a tuna-and-tomato sandwich in the easy chair so I could watch Tv when Tasha, Crystal, and Tess fanned out at my stockinged feet and look up at me with imploring eyes, the effect of the tuna being not unlike that of, apparently, catnip. They rubbed me, they yowled at me, they head-butted me, they tail-switched me. I kept nodding in the direction of the bowls of kitty food I’d just set out for them. I reminded them that they didn’t even technically belong to me (a local girl who’d gone to Hollywood had left them in my care), so any largesse on my part was all the more remarkable. They were unimpressed with my argument.

I had a headful of confusion. Squires was the most likely killer. But what had Todd Jensen and Amy Squires been doing at the murder scene?

I washed up, changed into a work shirt and chinos, and went out the door. Which was when the phone rang, and I had to go back inside.

“McCain?”

“Yeah.” It was Cliffie.

“Guess where I am?”

“Where?”

“The Sixth Street elevator.”

“Good for you.”

“Meet me at the bottom as soon as you can.”

“Any special reason?”

“Yeah. We’re gonna take a ride.”

“That sounds romantic.”

“You won’t be so smart when you get here.”

“So I don’t even get a hint, huh?”

“Just get your ass over here, counselor.”

“See you in a bit.” I’d run out of smart remarks.

The phone rang a moment after I hung up.

“One of my spies tells me that something’s going on near the Sixth Street elevator.”

“So I’m told by Cliffie.”

“He’s going to beat us, McCain.”

“No, Judge, he’s not.”

“He’d bloody better not, McCain.”

Whenever she used the word bloody, I knew she was mad. She’d seen The Bridge on the River Kwai and had been using it for emphasis ever since.

The Sixth Street elevator is an inclined cable car that rises to the top of a four-hundred-foot hill. Seems sixty-seventy years ago, the then mayor had a brother-in-law who’d rigged up a similar elevator in Dubuque. Why not in Black River Falls? reasoned the mayor. The elevator is operational about sixty days a year. That’s not because of the weather but because the damned thing doesn’t work any more often than that.

There were three police cars and an ambulance sitting at the base of the hill. The cable car was parked at the bottom end of the tracks.

Cliffie hooked his thumbs in his Sam Browne and swaggered over to me. “I’d sure like to listen in on that conversation when you call the Judge.”

“And why will I call the Judge?”

He just grinned. “C’mon, we’ll take a ride.”

The hill was thick forest except for the cable tracks. In the moonlight, the burnished autumn trees looked wan. A crowd was just now forming. I saw the town’s most famous radio newsman, E.K.W. Horner-and don’t ask me what E.K.W. stands for, nobody knows-with his bow tie and hand mike interviewing a young lawyer from the Da’s office. It was a warm night and there were a lot of hand-holding couples. I wanted to be one of them. And I wanted the hand I was holding to be Mary’s, sitting out at the AandWill root beer stand, eating hot dogs, and watching the carhops show off on their skates. Some of them were pretty damned good. The girls appreciated them as much as the boys.

Cliffie escorted me to the cable car. You could see the various layers of paint the car had received over the years to cover up the dirty words kids put on there. The words got progressively dirtier. Back in the 1930’s Hot

Damn! was a bold expression. We’d now worked our way up to Shove It! God only knew what the future would bring.

The tiny car smelled of oil (from the cable overhead), cigarettes, cigars, perfume, and simple age. The wooden sides had been rained on one-too-many times, and now there was a creeping odor of mortality about them.

Cliffie took a childish delight in operating the elevator. He closed the door, took off the brake, and slammed the car into motion.

I was knocked back against the wall.

“You know he didn’t finish high school,” Cliffie said, as we started crawling up the steep incline. All we could see, side to side, were the branches of fir trees that covered the hill.

“Who didn’t?”

“Your client.”

“I have a lot of clients.”

“But only one killer, I’ll bet.”

I sighed. “Aw, shit. Is this about Chalmers?”

“It sure is, counselor.”

“He didn’t kill anybody.”

“He didn’t, huh? You know what I said about him not finishing high school?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that don’t mean he’s dumb.”

“No, of course it doesn’t.”

“He managed to fool you.” The lazy, mean, hillbilly smirk. “And foolin’ a counselor like you-well, you’d have to be a mighty smart man.”

I still had no idea what he was talking about.

As long as it wasn’t about Mary. It terrified me that it was going to be about Mary.

The car continued to inch its way up the slope, slowly now that the incline was steep. I wanted to get out and push.

“I still don’t get a clue?”

“You just keep your britches on, counselor.”

He pulled out a flashlight and beamed it through the window. He was looking for something next to the cable tracks. “Should be comin’ up any time now.”

I started watching the hillside outside the car and saw nothing remarkable. Ground covered with needles of fir and spruce. An occasional beer can, empty red package of Pall Malls, potato-chip bag, all pitched out by cable car passengers.

Cliffie was getting excited. He started smirking to himself, which was always a bad sign, and then he brought the car to a jerky halt.

“We’re not there yet,” I said.

“Oh, yes, we are.”

“We’re only halfway to the top.”

“That’s where your man put it.”

“My man?”

“Chalmers.”

“Ah.”

“I hate that. That “Ah” thing you say.”

“I’ll have to try and say it more often.”

“Let’s see you play smart-ass now, counselor.”

He threw the doors open and stepped outside.

The pine scent was powerful. The silver half-moon was vivid. It was a beautiful night. Cliffie led the way around the front of the car. Then I saw why he’d stopped. A big white X had been made on the dark ground with some sort of flour or powder.

“Who put that there?” I said.

“Guy who found it.”

“Guy who found what?”

“You’ll see, counselor. Don’t worry.”

He led us into the trees then, but not far. We didn’t need to go far. The body of David Squires was waiting alongside the forest trail, sprawled on its back between two trees. The bark on one tree ran with a sickly looking sap.

Cliffie started to move forward but I grabbed him.

“What the hell you think you’re doin’, counselor? I’m the law around here.”

“The crime scene. We could destroy evidence.”

“That more of the stuff them Commies taught you at Iowa?”

A few years ago, a professor of economics had written a mildly left-wing book about the poverty of migrant workers. Ever since then, the local McCarthyites had accused everyone on the faculty of being a Commie.

“Crime scene. You’ve never heard that expression before?”

“I just wanted you to see and then apologize.”

“For what?”

“For accusing this fine man of being a murderer.”

“A, he wasn’t a fine man, and, B,

I still think he had something to do with the murder of his wife.”

I don’t know what kind of reaction Cliffie’d expected from me-probably some kind of swooning admission that I’d been wrong about Squires-but I wasn’t giving it to him.

I sighed. “I’m sorry he’s dead.”

There was a small hole on the right side of his forehead. I assumed this was the shot that killed him.

His tan suit was grass-stained on the knees and elbows. His right cheek was bruised badly.

“You are, huh?”

“He was a human being.”

“Not much of one, according to you.”

“He beat his wives pretty badly. That isn’t exactly an admirable trait.”

“Some people just think their shit don’t stink. That’s what sticks in my craw.”

“Meaning me?”

The smirk. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“So what’s the connection to Chalmers?”

“Two people seen him get on the cable car with Squires here.”

“When was this?”

“About two hours ago.”

“You going to tell me who they are?”

“The witnesses?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Oh, sure. I’ll even let you interview them so you can twist their stories.”

“He didn’t do it.”

“You sure of that?”

“I’m sure.”

“What I’m sure of is, you’re full of shit. You and the Judge.”

“Gosh, and here I was going to invite you to my birthday party.”

“C’mon, McCain, the bastard’s nailed and you know it. He’s an ex-con.”

I had a lot of things to do.

“Let’s go,” I said. “I need to get back.”

He looked at the body and then smirked at me. “Nailed good and tight.”

I was just walking back to my car when the block-long Lincoln Continental swept up.

Jeeves was driving. I called him Jeeves because of my fondness for P. G. Wodehouse. I also called him Jeeves because I had no idea what his name was. He was Judge Whitney’s driver, that’s all I knew. He rolled down the window. He was in livery. He looked proper and tough at the same time, not unlike the Judge herself. He nodded to the backseat.

I opened the back door and peeked in.

Judge Whitney handed me a drink of some kind.

“Get in.”

I got in. Jeeves swept us away. The Lincoln was so cushy it was like floating.

Beethoven was low on the radio. There was a heavy window between front and backseats. The

Judge was dressed in a black suede car coat and slacks. Between us on the plump seat was a large thermos of whatever we were drinking.

She said, as we sailed along, “I’ve done something nice for you.”

“Thank you. It actually tastes pretty good.

For alcohol.”

“It’s called a Manhattan and that isn’t what I had reference to.”

“Oh.”

“I was referring to David Squires.”

“Some dirt?”

“A lot of dirt. He was broke.”

“You’re kidding. What happened to that inheritance of his?”

“Squandered on every kind of cockamamie idea you can think of. He had this business manager-an old family friend-in Chicago. The fellow basically figured out a way to embezzle a lot of money.”

“When did Squires find this out?”

“A couple of years ago. As he was a member of a prestigious family, the local bankers kept everything quiet. He was deeply in debt. The bank was almost ready to foreclose on his estate.”

“I take it you’re getting this from a banker?”

“Of course.”

“Nice to know they keep their secrets.”

She clucked, something she rarely does. She curses, she rolls her eyes, she shakes her head, but she rarely clucks. “Secrets are confided upward, McCain. Since my family is more prominent than the Squires family, I have a right to know.”

“I believe the English called it the Divine Right of Kings.”

“You’re perfectly happy being uncivilized, aren’t you?”

“Downright delirious. Just give me a good Three Stooges movie and a box of popcorn and I’m in heaven.”

She took a healthy swallow of her drink.

“I just gave you some important information. Now do something with it.”

“Any suggestions?”

“You’re the investigator, McCain, not me.”

“So you think his being broke had something to do with his murder?”

“Don’t you?”

And with that, she got me. Her rubber band. Right on my little Irish nose.

“Don’t people give you funny looks when they see you carrying rubber bands around?” I asked.

“People never give me funny looks. They wouldn’t dare.”

“I guess that’s a good point.”

This time, I ducked.

She lifted her phone. I heard it ring up front. Jeeves picked up. She said,

“Take him back to his car” and hung up.

“Cliffie could always get lucky, you know,” she said. “You’ve got to wrap this up.”

I stared out the window at my little town. It looked so cozy with night here, the lights on in all the friendly windows, the gray images of Tv flashing through the air, so many contented people in those living rooms, old couples and middle-aged couples and young couples, babies waddling around in industrial-strength diapers and older brothers on the telephone nervously trying to impress the girl they just called. I loved the whole history of the town, way back to when the French explorers tried to take advantage of the Indians hereabouts, only to learn that the Indians were slyly taking advantage of them. I started thinking about Mary again, and I got scared. Two people were dead. Whoever had killed them probably wouldn’t mind killing a third.

When we pulled up next to my Ford, the Judge said, “Time to get to work, McCain.

Serious work.”